Shadow Break
by AkamaiMom
Summary: They have a history, from which each of them had moved on and subsequently experienced heartbreaking loss. Unexpectedly, in the midst of the apocalypse, they find each other again. Now, they need to figure out if they have a future. One-shot episode tag to "In the Dark". Spoilers for Season 3. Tom/Sasha ship.


**Shadow Break**

 _An episode tag to "In the Dark"_

 _I didn't intend to like Sasha, but she's grown on me. This is a Tom/Sasha fic - you've been warned._

 _Well, hell._

Genocide.

Totally not what he'd been expecting.

Chandler sighed, leaning back in his chair, threading his fingers behind his head. He should have been tired - hell - he should have been exhausted. But where his body clearly felt the fatigue, his brain was torturously alert. Genocide. Damn - what a gigantic cluster. And it was up to him to solve it. Again. Impossible problems being thrust upon him seemed to be a "thing" lately.

He was starting to get a complex.

Closing his eyes, he sought respite from the thoughts roiling in his brain. Ideas, rejected ideas, tactics, worries, and regrets all fought for purchase in his overburdened mind. What he wouldn't give right now for a decent football game and a cold beer. Or even a boring football game and a beer. Hell - at this point, he'd even watch hockey. Or curling. Something - _anything_ \- to take his mind off the here and now.

He thought he'd imagined the faint knock at the door, but then a muted 'clank' signaled that the hatch behind him had opened. Craning his neck, he looked back over his shoulder to watch as the newcomer entered. Tall, elegant, almost achingly familiar. Dark hair that caught the mediocre light in the stateroom and glistened as it fell over her shoulder.

Sasha.

Catching his eye, she raised a hand to show him a package. "I brought sustenance."

"Oh?"

"A sandwich." She made her way to the chair he'd practically melted into, but didn't sit. "I see you've made yourself comfortable."

He shrugged, glancing down at his stockinged feet, which were resting comfortably on the table in front of him. "I guess."

Her lips tweaked upwards slightly. Tom watched as she bent over, setting the sandwich on the table with a ridiculous amount of precision. Whether it was a peace offering or a bribe, he couldn't tell.

"Tuna on white bread. Mustard mixed in with the mayo. Pepper, but no salt. Lettuce, no tomato, and only a hint of red onion."

He couldn't quell his slow smile. "You remembered."

"You're the kind of man who isn't easily forgotten, Tom Chandler."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Sasha's teeth flashed in a wide grin. "Yes?"

Tom nodded, understanding without any embellishment on the subject. He ran a hand across the hint of stubble on his cheek. "Well, if it makes any difference, you're not the kind of woman who fades into the shadows, either."

Her scowl wasn't genuine. "Well, that's disappointing."

"Right. Because you'd work well as a wall flower."

"Being discreet is part of my job, you know. I'm supposed to be somewhat bland and tractable, and easily able to adapt."

"Adaptable." He planted his elbow on the armrest of his chair, resting his chin on his palm. "You've perfected that part of it, at least. But you'll never be bland. Don't even get me started on the tractable part."

Somehow, she managed to make her smirk look innocent. "What is it they say? 'Well-behaved women rarely make history'."

"Who says that?"

Sinking down to sit on the arm of the chair adjacent to Tom's, Sasha sighed, casting him a wry, teasing kind of look. "Clearly it's women who are trying to justify their own bad behavior."

Tom's eyes narrowed, studying the woman he'd known longer than he'd truly known himself. The woman who had forced him to confront the question of who he really was at a time when he'd imagined he knew everything. His voice emerged softer than he'd intended. More intimate. "And how badly have you behaved, Sasha Cooper?"

Her hair fell over her shoulder as she canted her head to one side. Her face radiated sincerity. "Not very. You know the worst."

"Hooking up with Peng?"

"It wasn't like that." Sasha's expression sharpened. "Nothing happened. You know that."

He did. For some reason, he'd just needed to hear it from her. Passing his tongue across his lips, he continued. "Smuggling black market Cure."

She glanced down to where she'd clasped her hands on her lap. "I did what I thought was best."

"I know." And he did, really. Bracing his elbows on the arms of his chair, he steepled his fingers near his chin, gazing at her over the tops of his knuckles. "And your actions have most likely saved countless lives, now that we know what we know."

"I hope so." She met his eyes, without any sort of self-consciousness whatsoever. "I really do."

"Me too."

For a moment, they both fell silent, sharing the moment. He pressed his lips together and grimaced slightly when pain shot up his jaw. He'd hit a rock or a root when he'd landed back on the island - when the Nathan James had blown the MSS to kingdom come and nearly taken Tom and Vulture Team along, too. He hadn't even realized he'd been injured at the time, concerned as he'd been with getting the wounded - and the dead - back onto the ship. But now, in this moment of respite, he could feel the ache. Staring down at his feet, he could also see that his borrowed socks were mismatched. Two slightly different shades of black, and the stitching on one toe was orange rather than red. Without intending to, he smiled.

"Imagining my demise?"

Startled, Tom looked up. "Excuse me?"

"You had this look on your face. Like a cat contemplating his canary."

He flickered a glance back down at his feet before returning his attention to the iced blue of her eyes. "I was just thinking about Darien."

"Your wife."

"She had this thing about matching socks. The kids hated helping fold laundry because Darien insisted that they find and match each individual pair of socks. The job wasn't done until the socks were all paired off. Sometimes it took days searching through drawers and soccer bags and under beds until all the socks were found and folded together. And, until the mate was found, she'd hang the single socks from a cork board in the laundry room. She called it 'The Orphanage'."

Puzzled, Sasha lifted a hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear. "And what brought that up?"

"I was just thinking that whoever donated these socks to the cause didn't have a mother like Darien."

He could practically feel it as her gaze drifted away from his face, down his body and along his legs until she'd reached his feet. Could feel it even more when her quizzical expression blossomed into a smile.

"I would never had noticed."

"I suppose Mr. Cooper didn't care whether his socks were matched properly?"

The smile immediately grew wistful. She had loved him, then. That hadn't been an exaggeration. He was glad about that - and sad at what she'd lost. Tom watched as she gathered herself to answer.

"He sent his laundry out, actually. Diplomats, you know. He had staff that saw to all of his accouterments."

"Fancy."

"Not really." She shook her head, worrying a little at her bottom lip with her teeth while she sought her response. "He was a good man. He was genteel. And gentle. We were very different. I'm - well, me. You know all about that. But he was kind and sweet and genuine. My brother actually called him 'boring' when he first met him, but later, he admitted that we worked well together. He was the yin to my yang, the calm to my storm. The evening to my noon, if that makes any sense."

It did. Tom could imagine that kind of man doing well with a firebrand like Sasha. "How long were you together?"

"About a year, in total. Fourteen months before he died. Married for eight of those."

"Newlyweds."

"We were happy."

"Kids?"

"No." She found one of her nails intriguing, working at it while she answered. "We were trying. Just before the outbreak, we'd started exploring options for different - procedures."

Her tone made it plain that she didn't want to discuss it further. Tom settled more deeply into his chair, watching her scrub at something on her hand. If he had to guess, he'd bet that her hands were already spotless.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

For a long beat, they just let that lie there. There was an advantage to having a past, he supposed. Like when she'd called him out during their mad dash out of Hong Kong. Only Sasha had recognized his silence for what it actually was. And then she'd sat back and let him brood. He'd needed it.

"I'm sorry, too, Tom." She'd leaned forward, bracing herself on her knees. "About the Dr. Scott thing."

He went still. "The Dr. Scott thing?"

"I thought that she'd been wrong about the virus mutating. Obviously, I was mistaken."

"Oh." He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath until he'd released it. "That."

She tossed him a sharp look. "What did you think I meant?"

"Nothing."

"You and Captain Slattery have complete faith in her and her work. I should have been more understanding of that."

He clenched his teeth again, grateful, this time, for the jolt of pain that blasted up through his temple. Glancing up at Sasha, he found her scrutiny uncomfortable. "We had to believe in her. She and her work were the mission."

But the discerning Ms. Cooper had understood more than he'd intended to convey. "You miss her."

And deep, deep in the back of his soul, the pit opened again. The one that kept reminding him that Rachel Scott would still be alive if it weren't for him and his own damned indecision. That moment in the hallway would haunt him for the rest of his life - that moment when he should have done what his heart had wanted, rather than what was prudent. "I do."

Sasha's voice soothed through the quiet of the room. "So, I'm guessing that there was more to it than what we've been told."

He caught her eye, knowing that she'd understand him completely when he didn't say anything at all.

Her lips tightened into an unspoken "Oh."

"She was - " he hesitated, searching for the right words."Special."

"You and she were - "

Tom shook his head. "No."

"But you could have been."

He tilted his head to one side, mulling through the responses that tumbled through his head and not finding one that worked. In the end, he just lowered his feet to the floor and straightened in the chair. The next time he looked up at Sasha, her expression humbled him.

Compassion without judgment.

"Oh, Tom." She shifted, sliding gracefully from the arm of the chair to the table even as she pushed the sandwich to the other side of the table. Scooting forward, she rested her forearms on her knees. "I'm so sorry."

Chandler leaned forward, mirroring her position without really meaning to. "It is what it is."

"True."

For some crazy reason, he became intensely aware of the fact that he could smell her. She wasn't wearing perfume - that was a luxury the James couldn't offer. She'd been scrounging for clothes to wear since they'd boarded the Nathan James, and to her credit, had ingratiated herself so much to the crew that they'd happily helped out with both clothing and gear. She must have visited the ship's store for soap and shampoo. Tom knew for a fact that Sasha Cooper wasn't the kind of woman to care about niceties when there were bigger problems at hand. So, what was filling his senses was just _her_. Maybe it was the intensity of the situation, the intimacy of the moment, or just her nearness. Perhaps it was just him needing something to focus on other than the mission at hand. Whatever, it was, it was intoxicating. And maddening. And dangerous.

She was inches away from him. Close enough that he could feel her heat wafting towards him, could feel the slight change in the air as her hair swung free in the space between them. Close enough that he could touch her. Wanted to touch her more than anything he'd felt in ages. He'd tried to quell the urge, but suddenly found himself incapable of resisting any longer.

He reached up and twined a single coffee-colored curl between his fingertips and around a knuckle, gently roughing the strands with the pad of his thumb. Soft. Sleek. Strong - much like the woman who sat within a heartbeat of him. She was watching him, studying his face, his bearing, his hand where it hovered so near her cheek. Her breathing had deepened, slowing down even as the pulse in her throat quickened. The barest hint of a blush colored the skin just below her ear, and yet her face remained completely passive, a subtle - yet non-communicative - smile tilting up the corners of her lips. Like the damned Mona Lisa, not just hiding secrets, but _becoming_ the secret.

Naval Intelligence. She'd been trained not to betray her emotions. She'd gotten better at it than he'd imagined she would - but then, he'd never figured her out completely, and she'd never truly let him in, even when their relationship had been on the line so long ago. Sasha Cooper had always been just a bit of a cypher.

A cypher whose blush had reached her cheek. Tom touched her skin with his fingertips, tracing the deeper color from her throat to the fine angle of her cheekbone. Smooth and cool - like the petals of a flower.

She stopped his fingers with her own, grasping his hand and drawing it downward into her lap, their fingers entangled.

"What happened between us, Tom? How did it all end so badly?" Barely a whisper, the question pierced through the thick air.

It took effort to breathe out. To control his body, his responses, and his mind. He tightened his fingers on hers. "I think the requisite response is something about being young and stupid."

Her eyes deepened a little, the color becoming more akin to the sea than the sky. "And now?"

Now? Chandler looked over at her, sitting unconventionally on the coffee table, leaning towards him, her entire expression a question. She'd always been beautiful - unforgettably so. But age and experience had brought her something else - some undefinable allure that had him so constantly on edge that he'd been imagining things that he shouldn't have been. He was a little ashamed to finally realize that he'd been planning a long, slow exploration of Sasha Cooper that would have helped him rediscover her secrets, her depths.

But that was a fantasy that he could not allow himself to dabble in. A thought that he didn't have the time to entertain. A wiser man would have expunged the thought from his being and moved on. Tom Chandler was realistic enough to know that he wasn't wise enough for that. His words emerged as reticent rather than sardonic. "Old. And still stupid."

In a moment of turn about, Sasha's free hand found its way towards the short-cropped hair at his temples. "Not so old, Captain."

"Even with the gray?"

"What is it that they say? Men aren't gray, they're distinguished."

"I think I'm just gray."

Sasha's fingertips eased through his hair, smoothing a few strands back into place before trailing down his temple and pulling away. "Back in the day, you were like this golden god. Tall and handsome and cocky as hell."

"Back in the day, huh?" He shrugged a single shoulder. "Now I _am_ feeling old."

"It's just an expression."

He looked downward, where their hands were still joined, where their shared warmth felt natural, and familiar, and right. Turning his hand slightly, he could see her fingers where they twined with his own. His battered and rough, hers smooth and equisite. A lifetime ago, his hands hadn't been so grizzled, but hers had still been perfect. It was a bit of an irony that honest, real work had wreaked havoc on his body, while intrigue and careful lies had been so kind to hers.

His exhale devolved into a snort of sorts. "Who the hell would have thought that we'd end up here?"

"When I heard it was you who'd brought the Cure home, I wasn't really surprised." Withdrawing her hand, Sasha stood. "What did surprise me was what you'd had to do to find it."

Suddenly wary, Tom stood. "What does that mean?"

"You've changed, Thomas Chandler." A tiny wrinkle formed above her nose. "What happened to the guy who used to do everything by the book? The guy who followed every rule, who obeyed every order? How did you become this man - this renegade who'll break into foreign capitols and lecture the President of the United States?"

"Circumstances change."

"And sometimes, so do men."

"I think you'll find that I'm pretty much the same guy I've always been."

"Oh, I'm not so sure." Taking a step to the side, Sasha rounded the other chair to stop behind it. "The old Tom would have recognized it when things were being offered to him. He'd have taken certain hints."

Chandler took a few steps towards her, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Hints?"

The chair between them seemed like a wall. Sasha had taken refuge behind it, her pose less sure than it had been before. Something had shifted. They were no longer heading down memory lane - the conversation had become something else. Personal, rather than intimate, if there was any distinction.

"After the minefield." She looked down at table, or the sandwich atop it - anywhere - rather than at Tom. Her words, when they came, were stilted and abrupt. "When the helo landed, and after we got Cruz and Wolf back on board the Nathan James."

He didn't say anything, merely allowed her to find her way through her own thoughts.

"After all of that, I came to your quarters to find you. To talk about - things."

Ah. Tom nodded, softly making his way past the chair towards her. Softly, his voice crossed the slight distance between them. "You kissed me."

Turning, Sasha folded her arms across her body, her cheek creasing in an uncertain smile. "And you didn't kiss me back."

Another step and he'd reached her, could smell her again, could practically hear her heartbeat. "I don't like to start things I can't finish."

"Can't finish," she caught his eye. "Or didn't want to finish?"

"Can't." The Captain searched her expression for a moment - just to assure that she was understanding him. "Not on the ship."

She was close - as close as she could be without actually touching him. She was a beautiful enigma. Her entire being radiated strength, and uncertainty, and some sort of damned challenge that made his hands itch to take it on. And right now, with the world going to hell again, he couldn't allow himself to entertain any of it. No matter how desperately he wanted to.

"Come on, Tom." The flush was back, pinking her cheeks and her throat, somehow making the blue of her eyes even more clear. "Live a little. It's the end of the world."

She'd always been like that - a glass half empty kind of girl, while he'd been the eternal optimist, although a pragmatic one. That had been one of their main stumbling blocks - that she hadn't had the faith to wait for circumstances to be right for them. She hadn't thought that what they'd shared was worth her patience. Rather than stick it out and wait for the appropriate time, she'd fled. When he'd realized she'd left, Tom had been angry, and fierce, and too stubborn to admit that he'd been hurt, and so he'd found himself a girl who was the polar opposite of Sasha and married her. And he'd loved Darien to the depths of his soul, grieving when he'd lost her.

But now. _Now_.

It was just the two of them again. And damned but if the timing still wasn't right.

"Not the end of the world, Sasha." He lifted a hand, without really meaning to, his fingers grazing the impossibly perfect line of her cheek.

He canted his head as he watched her expression change ever-so-slightly, as her breathing deepened, as her eyelids drifted the tiniest of fractions closed at his touch. He skimmed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, his fingertips soothing down the side of her throat, passing over her shoulder, measuring the wired strength of her bicep before rising again and cupping that pinked cheek with the palm of his hand. Slowly, deliberately, he threw caution to the wind and lowered his head to capture her mouth with his own.

Fire. Softness and strength. Need welled up within him with a force that stunned him. He nipped at her bottom lip, and then at the top, teasing her mouth open to explore further. Languid, deep, thorough - he was intensely aware when her hand framed his jaw, when her body moved against his - soft and firm and warm. His free hand rounded her body, splaying against the small of her back, pressing her more fully against him. She tasted like home. Familiar and comfortable, like something he'd been chasing his entire life, only to find in the furthest, most exotic reaches of the world. And she was taking as much from him as he could give, returning his touches kiss for kiss, caress for caress, force for force.

A rushing filled his ears. He couldn't think, couldn't reason - his entire existence in that moment was her. This woman, this moment, this touch. The softness of her lips on his, the sweetness of her sighs, the feel of her body against him. She would save him, or lead him to his destruction. At this exact moment, Tom really didn't care which.

She came up on her tip-toes, melding her body with his, she was touching his skin - somehow she'd untucked his shirt and found the scar on his abdomen - and his own fingers had tangled themselves in the fabric of her blouse. Angling a kiss against the corner of his mouth, Sasha then made a heated path down his jaw, ending up with a tongue's touch to the spot on his throat where his pulse beat so fiercely. He groaned, tilting her head back up so that he could take her mouth again. Deeper, now, wild, barely in check, he fought with the need burgeoning up within him, knowing that to succumb would be his undoing. Sasha made a noise in the back of her throat that might have been a sob, and the sound brought him back to reality, shocking him back to the present. Cursing himself, he drew away, only to return more gently, with slow, soft touches as he fought for control.

Finally, he could pull away from her provocative mouth, could disentangle his hands from her blouse, could tuck her head under his chin. Even so, he wasn't strong enough to push her away. Instead, he gathered her against himself, holding her as tightly as possible while he waited for the wanton need to diffuse. Waited for their heartbeats to return to some semblance of normal.

Damn. Damn. Damn. He buried his face in the slick beauty that was her hair, breathing in the scent that was hers, and hers alone - filling himself with her essence. She was strength, and guts, and nerve, and he wanted to remember forever how she felt in his arms.

Damn.

Against him, she stirred, her palm flat on the plane of his chest directly below his collarbone. Her breath was warm through his shirt, her cheek soft against his body. He closed his eyes tightly, quelling the need within him as he drummed up his courage. And then, cursing himself as a fool, he released her, stepping away.

She looked up at him with an odd expression - hurt, yet resigned. Shoving an errant lock of hair back behind her ear, she breathed deeply as she fought for calm.

"I'm sorry." Tom shook his head, his hands at his sides. "I shouldn't have - "

"No - it was me." Sasha reached out and gripped the back of the chair next to her. "It's my fault."

"I think it's just what we do." Taking a step backwards, he glanced downward at his feet. Still ridiculous in their mismatched socks. "History has shown that we're kind of an 'all or nothing' proposition."

"True." Her smile was fleeting, rueful and small.

"So, you see." His gaze flickered up to catch hers before fleeing again, focusing on anything other than the perfection of her face. Coward. "It's better if I don't kiss back."

Nodding, she tapped her fingers on the back of the chair. "I see that, now."

"At least, not while we're on the ship."

"Right. Duly noted."

"And it should probably wait until we've solved this current crisis."

"Aye aye." Sassy. She'd found her normal again. She moved towards the hatch, edging around him. "Well, then, I'd better go."

She pulled the lever, cracking the door open before stopping at his voice.

"Thank you." Tom watched as she turned halfway-round to look at him. "For the sandwich."

"Yes, well, I'm not that domestic, so don't get accustomed to it."

He grinned. "I won't."

"Just so we're clear." She pushed the door open just enough to maneuver over the knife-edge.

"Sasha."

Sighing, she peered back at him through the hatch. "What?"

"It's not the end of the world." He knew she understood by way her eyes brightened. Softly, so that no passing sailors could hear, he spoke directly to her. "It's just the beginning."

Her lips curved into a slow, intimate smile. "It is, huh?"

"It is."

Her eyes locked with his, energy pulsing between them like lightning between clouds. Ages passed within moments, and Tom realized stupidly that he'd been nervous. Anxious about what her response would be. The last time he'd asked her to wait, she'd fled without a backwards glance. Now, though, he'd felt a burst of hope. As if they'd both matured into the decisions that needed to be made.

Finally, she inclined her head in a brief nod, her cheek creased by a single dimple. "Okay, then. I'll see you later, Captain."

And it wasn't until she'd closed the hatch that he realized he'd been holding his breath. He exhaled, the sound loud and lonely in the emptiness of the cabin. For a moment, he simply stood there, staring at the closed hatch, wondering whether to be frustrated or relieved.

Knowing all along that, until he'd solved this latest set of crises, he'd be both.

 _Well, hell._


End file.
